The whole NFL community is trying to figure out where it stands on domestic violence in a classic NFL way: by weighing on-field value and public-relations value and generally disregarding any moral considerations.
The New York Giants are the latest team to prove themselves hypocritical, with the revelation Thursday that the team knew Josh Brown had abused his wife in 2015 and signed the kicker to a two-year contract anyway.
But though Brown’s transgressions were apparently not serious enough to prevent him from playing for the Giants, they were enough to get him fired from his offseason job, as an intern at the Bellevue, Washington office of JLL, a real-estate company. Via the Seattle Times:
JLL, a global firm with local offices in Seattle and Bellevue, would say only that Brown won’t be back next off-season, according to a spokesman.
JLL would not say whether that was because of the new documents showing Brown admitting to domestic violence in an incident last year. But it appears to be a sudden decision: As of Thursday, Brown still said in his LinkedIn andTwitter pages that he worked at JLL, and media reports from last off-season said he intended to come back next year.
It’s hard to say whether Brown deserves to be cut from the Giants the way he was fired from JLL, but you’d think a giant, public-facing company with a full PR staff would be able to at least feign anger at a brand of violent crime that America finally views as dangerous and destructive. Instead, here’s what Giants co-owner John Mara said on WFAN on Thursday:
“He certainly admitted to us that he abused his wife in the past. What’s a little unclear is the extent of that.”
Oy, maybe someone at JLL should fly in from Bellevue to run the Giants, because that quote from Mara implies a total disregard for the seriousness of Brown’s offense.
After suspending Brown for one game, the NFL has reopened its case against the kicker thanks to new evidence and will likely tack on some more games to show how tough the league is, while its teams basically admit they don’t give a crap about domestic violence.
